'Extremely serious' shortage of medicines in Guinea Bissau

The people of Guinea Bissau are in urgent need of medicines and medical personnel to help combat the spread of tuberculosis and AIDS, Bishop José Camnate Na Bissign told the Fides news service.

The African bishop said that the “extremely serious” shortage of medicine was one of the outcomes of international isolation in the wake of an April military coup. The people who pay most heavily for the country’s political crisis, he said, are “as always, the most vulnerable groups: the sick, children, women, and the elderly.”

African leaders have frequently complained that foreign aid is readily available for family-planning devices, but not for basic medicines needed to combat disease.

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